Don't label heroin users as 'junkies'
"People should stop calling heroin users "junkies" or "addicts", an influential think tank on drugs has said. The UK Drug Policy Commission said such names stigmatised users and made it more difficult to get off drugs.
Its report suggested that the policing of drugs on the streets and methadone programmes forcing users to go to chemists were "publicly humiliating".
Instead, the study said that British society needed to show more compassion towards drug users. Authors of the six-month report said the terms "junkie" and "addict" were distrustful and judgmental and led to feelings of low self-worth among drug users.
"The crux of this problem, I'm afraid, is the persistent view that drug addiction is the problem of the addict," he said. [It isn't??]
Source
Drug addicts have for some time been referred to simply as "users" in professional circles -- but even that vague term has already acquired a tone of contempt.
Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).
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